by Jen Klein
“Pays better than the ice-cream place,” he says, grinning down at me with his beautiful wide mouth.
It’s been several years since I’ve kissed that mouth. We met at YMCA day camp over the summer between eighth and ninth grades. I noticed him for two reasons: (1) He brought decks of cards and taught everyone to play Spades, Hearts, and Nertz. (2) When he smiled at me from across the picnic table, his teeth were bright white against his soft brown skin, and I immediately wanted to kiss him. Since I was new to kissing at the time, it took me a while to get up the gumption to do it, but eventually I did. We were joined at the face for the rest of the summer, during which the counselors did everything they could to dissuade us campers from hooking up, but to very little avail. We practiced kissing behind the bathrooms, behind the playground structure, and even behind a dumpster. Glen was no less perfect as the end of summer approached, and since I had no perfection of my own, I knew exactly where this had to be heading: Rejection City.
I knew it for sure when we were all sitting on a quilt in the grass during lunch. Someone had brought a big bag of licorice and set it in the middle of the quilt for all of us to share. I was only a month out of braces, so I planted my hands on my knees, giving my fingers a place to tap out a pattern so I wouldn’t be tempted to reach for the sticky candy. Glen noticed and gave me a weird look. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said. Except that I had been doing something. Something that calmed and soothed me. Something that no one knew about. I grabbed the licorice and took a big handful. As I’d suspected from the beginning, Glen was too perfect to be with a girl like me.
Later that day I led Glen to believe that I was going to join every extracurricular activity at my high school. I was suddenly extremely enthusiastic about the debate team and student government and field hockey. Since Glen would be attending a different Burbank school, this would leave no time for our make-out sessions. He broke up with me on the bus as we were coming back from our last camp field trip: a tour of the natural history museum. It seemed like a day of symbolism, the season and the relationship relegated to the annals of my personal history on the same day.
It’s been two and a half years since then, and I don’t run into Glen very often, but it’s never awkward between us. In fact, he’s always supernice to me. Who knows, maybe it’s his way of making up for dumping me on that bus.
“Do you have an employees’ bathroom my friend can use?” I ask.
Glen’s eyes dart to Cooper’s hair. “Yeah, just be fast.” He gestures to the side of the dressing room, where there’s a closed door sporting an EMPLOYEES ONLY sign. As Cooper disappears and Katie wanders off to flip through a rack of sundresses, Glen turns back to me. “So how are you, Lark? Do you know where you’re going to college?”
“I’m doing two years locally before I transfer to start an architecture degree,” I tell him. What I don’t tell him is that I wish I were starting at a four-year college right away, but it’s a money thing. “How’s Allie?”
“She’s great. We’re applying to the same places, so fingers crossed….” He trails off with a shrug and a bright white grin, implying that he and his girlfriend will be together forever.
When Cooper returns, his hair is slicked down, but he looks somewhat worse for the wear, with water still dripping from his left ear.
“Gross,” says Katie.
“Your sink pressure’s too high,” Cooper tells Glen.
“I should have warned you.” Glen pulls us in so he can whisper. “If you guys want to buy anything, I can score you fifteen percent off. Employee discount.”
“You rock,” I tell him. Yup, he’s definitely still feeling guilty.
“I know,” he says. And it’s all perfectly normal and delightful until Cooper and Katie and I head back out into the mall, Cooper’s new scarlet fedora perched on my head, to protect his hair. Once we’re away from the clothing store, Cooper pulls me to a stop. “Okay, enough already!”
“What?”
“Lark.” He sets his hands on my shoulders and looks into my eyes. “Sweet baby Lark. You have got to stop. Were you even paying attention to that hot boy offering deep discounts for alternative clothing?”
“Fifteen percent is hardly a deep discount,” I protest. “It’s shallow at best.”
“He is beautiful,” Katie says. “It’s a shame you guys didn’t work out.”
“Have you met Lark?” Cooper asks her. “Do you know why it never went anywhere with her and Glen?”
“Yes, and duh,” Katie says. “Because they were basically fetuses at the time.”
“Lark is standing right here,” I tell everyone. No one listens.
“Agreed,” Cooper says to Katie, totally ignoring me. “But that’s how it always goes with Lark. She gets out of things at the speed of light because she never actually gets in.”
“Sex?” I ask him. “Are you talking about sex?”
“No,” Cooper tells me. “Sex is the easy part.”
“Gross,” Katie says.
“Since when do you have sex?” I ask Cooper.
He ignores the question. “I’m talking about the full relationship experience. All the colors of the rainbow.”
“That is the gayest thing I’ve ever heard,” Katie says.
“Thank you,” Cooper says.
“Relationships are rainbows?” she asks.
This time Cooper ignores her instead of me. “On the ROY-G-BIV scale, you’re living in the tiny slice between dusky peach and light yellow,” he tells me. “You’re missing green. And blue. And purple.” He gives a dramatic sigh. “Purple is so good.”
I’m genuinely confused. “Purple is sex?”
“Nothing is sex!” Cooper explodes. “I’m saying you need to try something new.”
“I agree with that,” Katie says.
Since when do they agree on anything?
“You need to pick different kinds of guys,” she continues.
“Wrong,” Cooper says.
That’s more like it.
“Try someone who’s not popular, who isn’t a team captain or an honor roll student. And then you need to end it like a human,” Katie finishes.
“How about we stop referring to me as less than a human?” I try to make a joke out of it.
“See, that.” Cooper points at me. “See what she does, joking about something serious instead of being real. This is what she does with the boys. She kisses them in shadowy corners where no one can see. She pulls away before anything gets real, and she does it in a way that makes them the bad guys. She weasels out like a thief in the night.”
“I’m really not loving this,” I tell them both, wishing we were anywhere but standing in the middle of a mall, doing anything but having this conversation. They don’t even look at me. I try again. “Hello? You both just saw me have an extremely healthy interaction with an ex-boyfriend. Isn’t that supposed to be the point? To have fun and get out without anyone getting hurt?”
“No,” Katie tells me.
“Yeah, the only reason you get shopping discounts is because you never had anything real with Glen in the first place,” Cooper says.
Okay now, that’s just rude. But before I can say it, he and Katie are back to negotiating.
“I’m with you on her breakups,” Katie tells Cooper. “I haven’t known Lark or any of her boys to shed a tear when things end. Not one.”
“It’s not normal,” Cooper says.
“On top of that,” Katie argues, “Lark is only ever with externally perfect guys who are jocks or scholars or both. I’m saying try a goth. Take a hipster for a spin. Give a band geek a whirl. You know what they say about brass players and how they kiss….”
Cooper’s eyes light up. “Ooh, I hooked up with Omar Taylor in tenth grade. Second-chair trombone. It’s all true.”
&
nbsp; “See,” Katie says, tugging at the edge of her scoop neck T-shirt so the lace strap of her lavender bra is visible.
“I do not see,” I tell her. “You want me to—what? Go hang out at marching-band practice?”
“Yes,” Katie says.
“No,” Cooper says.
“You said you liked the trombone boy,” Katie points out.
“Fine, pick up a brass,” Cooper tells me. “Or a woodwind. They’re good with their hands, all those little keys. Whatever, stay in it long enough to know what it’s about. Don’t get him to dump you two weeks in, when no one gives a crap yet. Stay in longer.”
“And then dump him louder,” Katie says.
I open my mouth, but Cooper railroads right over me. “We’re in agreement, then,” he says to Katie.
“Yes,” she answers.
“I’m not,” I say. “I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be agreeing to.”
“I’ll break it down,” Katie says. “Find a boy. Someone different from your usual cookie-cutter boys. Start with kissing him, like you always do.”
“Approved,” Cooper says. “And then give him a chance. Make him love you. Make it last.”
“But then break his heart.” Katie shrugs. “Or fall in love and get married and have babies, whatever. But no getting him to dump you. If you want it to be over, you have to get out by having an awful, awkward breakup conversation, like the rest of us.”
“Because that should be the goal,” I tell them both.
“No,” Cooper says. “The goal is proving you can have a relationship where someone gives a crap about the other person.”
God, do they think I’m a monster or something?
“What if the guy I want doesn’t want me back?” I ask.
“Cross that bridge when you come to it,” Cooper says.
“Reeling them in is not where you have trouble,” Katie says.
I guess they’re right. Then again, convincing a horny teenaged boy to kiss me is hardly a difficult act.
“Tell you what,” says Cooper. “If we agree on a boy and you can’t get him to kiss you, the deal’s off. Game over.”
So now it’s a game. Wonderful.
“You really think I need this?” I ask, and am immediately met by fervent nods from both of them.
“Without a doubt,” says Katie.
“One hundred percent,” says Cooper. He turns to Katie. “How much do you like me?”
“Not even a little.”
“The feeling is mutual.” He turns back to me. “If we’re agreeing on this, you know we’re right.”
Who am I to argue with logic like that? Besides, I hate arguments.
“Fine,” I agree.
“Good girl.” Katie gives me a triumphant smile. “Come up with some names. Cooper and I will do the same, and we’ll talk tomorrow. I’m late for a manicure.”
“She has to sharpen her claws,” Cooper says. Apparently, their goodwill toward each other only exists when they’re ganging up on me.
“Whatever.” Katie blows me a kiss, throws Cooper a snarky look, and sails off.
I watch her go, wondering what I’ve gotten myself into, and then turn to glare at Cooper. He’s still gazing after Katie. “She wears colored contacts, right? No one has eyes that color.”
I ignore the question, as I have always ignored the question, because—yes—Katie’s eyes are really light brown, but she swore me to secrecy in ninth grade.
Cooper turns to me and, in one motion, grabs my hand and pulls me into a hug. “You know I love you, Larks.”
I drop my head onto his shoulder, allowing him to hold me. “I love you, too, Coops.”
He strokes my hair and I relax into him, thinking of the as-yet-unnamed boy in my near future and how he has no idea what’s in store for him:
Reel him in.
Make him love me.
Break his heart.
I find an empty space in the Wheelz parking lot and swing out of my car. It’s a used powder-blue Chrysler Sebring that my parents helped me buy last year with every cent I’d scraped and squeezed over the span of my entire life. It has dents and the radio doesn’t work, but I love it.
I push through the double doors and into the familiar sensory overload of my family’s business: an indoor go-karting establishment. Rock music blares over the speakers, competing with the sounds of karts zooming around the high-speed track and occasionally banging into walls or each other.
The vehicles are electric, so there’s no odor of gasoline, but plenty of other scents fill the air: popcorn, sticky-sweet slushies, burgers frying in the back, burning rubber, and the faintest hint of sweat.
The business caters to parents throwing birthday parties, corporations hosting employee bonding events, and local teens who want to hang out and drive fast. It’s a lot of work. My parents have several business partners, but they’re mostly unseen on the actual premises. My dad is the boots on the ground.
I find my brother, Leo, in the party room, cleaning up after what appears to have been a very raucous Sunday-afternoon birthday party. “I thought you’d be ready to go,” I say, swiping a handful of discarded napkins off a table and throwing them into the trash. Might as well help him finish. The sooner I can get him home, the sooner I can meet up with my friends.
“This party ran late,” Leo says. “And another group just called to come in. Dad’s in the back.”
“I’m supposed to meet Cooper and Katie in ten minutes.”
Leo looks surprised. He runs a hand through his light brown hair, a shade darker than mine but almost the exact same color as Mom’s. “Both of them? Together?”
“They’ve found some common ground lately,” I tell him. What I don’t say is that their common ground is almost entirely centered around what’s wrong with me.
“So no chance you can ditch them and help Dad out here instead?”
Guilt and frustration war within me. They both win. I glare at Leo. “Seriously? Where’s Mano?”
“He got a gig to play a kid’s birthday party in Sylmar, so we’re down a person.”
“Can’t you stay?” I ask.
“Nope.” Leo looks worried. “I’ve already worked the max hours. Child labor laws.”
Crap. If Dad’s only assistant manager, Mano, isn’t here, that means Dad will have to stick around to help out with the incoming group. Leo and I both know that’s not going to end well.
“Fine,” I tell him. “I’ll run you home, and I’ll come back to help.”
“Thank you,” he says.
“You’re welcome,” I answer, wishing everything could be different.
* * *
Half an hour later Leo has been deposited at home and I’m back at Wheelz, this time behind the glass-encased redemption counter. Katie is perched beside me on a stool, and Cooper is slumped over the end of the counter with his head buried in his arms. We’re all waiting for the eight-year-old kid before us to make a decision.
“Virtual-reality glasses?” he asks.
“You don’t have quite enough tickets for that,” I say. What I don’t say is that he’d need, like, a thousand more.
“Stuffed frog?”
“Look at the bottom shelf,” I tell him. “You can afford something there.”
“Whoopie cushion?”
“That’s on the second shelf.” Beside me, Katie stifles a giggle.
“Monster teeth?”
“Third shelf.” At the end of the counter, Cooper doesn’t look up, but he squeezes his hand into a fist and gently strikes it against the glass. Thump.
The kid drops to his knees and presses his forehead against the front of the counter. Then he pulls back and looks at where his breath fogged up the glass. He pokes his finger at it, drawing two eyes and a smile.
“Have you decided?” I ask him.
“Can I have two bouncy balls?”
“You only have enough tickets for one,” I tell him. From Cooper’s end of the counter, there’s another thump.
“Are these real rabbit feet?”
“Probably not.”
Thump-thump. This time Katie doesn’t stifle her giggle. And this time it’s more of a snort.
“What’s so funny?” asks the kid.
“Nothing,” I tell him. “And I just remembered that actually you can have two bouncy balls.” I scoop two balls from the bin and, for good measure, grab a third. I shove them all into the kid’s hands and swipe his meager stack of tickets off the counter. “And there’s a bonus one, too.”
“Wow, thanks!” He beams at me, and I have to smile back because he looks so happy and his lips are stained with blue slushie. We watch him scamper off.
“Finally,” Katie says. “We’ve got business to attend to. Who’s Lark going to fall madly in love with?”
“Rasheem Woodward?” Cooper suggests. “Honor roll, cool shoes.”
“She’s already been there,” Katie says. “Freshman year.”
“His shoes were cool,” I agree.
“Right. Weston Howard?”
“He’s cute,” I tell them. “But I think he’s dating Amelia Grant.”
“Plus, he’s basically a carbon copy of every other guy Lark’s ever kissed,” Katie says. “How about Christopher Connor? He’s different.”
“The guy with the neck tattoo?” I ask.
Kate shrugs. “I’d date him.”
“I don’t think he’s my type.”
“That’s the problem.” Katie sounds frustrated. “We’re trying to go outside of the box here.”
“Think of someone interesting,” Cooper says.
“Someone who you don’t know but you could get to know,” Katie chimes in.
The image of Ardy Tate zips into my brain.
“What?” Cooper pokes me. “What was that?”
“Nothing,” I lie.
But Cooper sees right through it. “Who did you think of?”
I don’t want to tell him. Ardy isn’t my usual type: easy to reel in, easy to push away. He seems more…substantial than the guys I normally kiss beneath the bleachers. Plus, I’m pretty sure we’ve already determined that he’s not that into me.
